Charlie and Leonard were immediately called to the bridge for the mission, though they were greeted in entirely different ways. "Bones…Traitor," he said with only the slightest hint of betrayal in his voice.

"Captain, may I ask why you just referred to Lt. Jacobs as a traitor?" Spock enquired.

"Because she transferred to the U.S.S. Archer," Kirk whined. "The Enterprise is better."

"Am I correct in assuming your transfer to the Archer included a promotion of some sort?" Spock asked her.

"Yes," Charlie replied nervously. "I'll be the Chief Medical Officer there."

"Congratulations on your promotion, then, as you are very qualified for the position." Now, he turned to Kirk. "Why is it you are calling her a traitor for transferring to the Archer? Lt. Commander Jacobs has done nothing apart from advancing her career."

"He's upset that I'm transferring and feels as if I've stabbed him in the back though it has nothing to do with him." At this, Charlie stared pointedly at Kirk who crossed his arms and pouted.

"I fail to understand why he would feel betrayed by your actions," Spock continued.

"It's a human thing," McCoy grumbled. "You Vulcans wouldn't understand."

"You comment only affirms my assumption that our Captain is acting illogically, Dr. McCoy, though I thank you for the clarification."

Kirk decided that he was done talking about hi "So, we're going to neutralize a volcano and you and I are on the away team, Bones." Charlie had a feeling that Kirk was breaking protocol…again.

"And why the hell would I do that?" he asked.

"Because I thought you ought to have a little fun on this mission. If it makes you feel any better, I'm sending Spock into a volcano."

"It does, actually," he said with a small smile. At this, Spock gave him an almost offended look.

Charlie rolled her eyes at the frenemy-esque relationship that existed between Leonard and the Vulcan. "So you're sending him onto a planet that could potentially be destroyed by a volcano?"

"Don't worry about it, Charlie. We're going on the planet to prevent the volcano from going off so obviously it isn't going to be destroyed," Kirk quipped. "We'll be fine. And besides, I'm going with him."

"That's so comforting, Captain," she replied sarcastically before giving him a serious look. "Permission to stay on the bridge during the mission?" She wanted to have immediate updates on everyone who would be completing the mission off the ship.

Kirk nodded, understanding her concern. "Of course."

She walked with Kirk and Leonard to the pad. "Make sure both of you come back." Kirk, as childish was he was, was still her friend. A lot had changed since the academy.

Now it was just her, Scotty and Chekov on the bridge. "Why is it you medical officers aren't ever in the med bay?" the redshirt asked.

She shrugged. "I'm here to make sure that the bridge is performing well psychologically?"

"I think you're beginning to catch some of Jim's bullshit."

"Well, I could be asking you why you're never in Engineering," she retorted.

Charlie listened to communications between her friends carefully, not wanting to miss a single sentence. "Dammit, I hate being stuck on the ship. That extra combat training may as well have been for nothing."

"You're telling me you want to be the one running for her life on a dangerous planet?" the Scott asked dubiously.

"Yep," she replied simply. "Better me than Leonard," she muttered under her breath.

At this point the acting communications officer – who could in no way measure up to Uhura's ability – announced that Jim, Leonard, Uhura and Sulu would all be returning to the bridge shortly, eliciting a sigh of relief from Charlie. He was safe. However, when all four of them rushed onto the bridge, it became very clear that something was wrong. Then Charlie remembered: Spock had gone into a volcano. And he wasn't on the bridge right now.

Nyota managed to make communication between the Vulcan and the Enterprise, but it was short-lived and ended in Spock telling Kirk to let him die because "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few".

"How utilitarian," Charlie muttered.

Jim turned to Charlie and Leonard, asking one very desperate question. "If Spock and I switched places, what would he do?"

"He'd let you die," Leonard told him gravely. Unfortunately, it was the plain, hard truth.

"That doesn't mean that you have to let him die," Charlie insisted.

Kirk took her words to heart and ordered Sulu and Chekov to bring the Enterprise to the volcano so that they could beam Spock up. An imperfect decision but the right one in Charlie's opinion. (Though, she had to admit she had a skewed perspective. After all, her best friend was dating Spock.) Charlie stayed with Nyota while Leonard and Jim went to see if the beam-up had been successful.

"He's going to be fine," she assured her friend.

"Captain, is Commander Spock alright?" Uhura asked Kirk.

"He's fine," Leonard muttered on the other end.

Upon hearing that Spock was okay, Uhura threw her communication device away from her in frustration with the Vulcan. Charlie did not want to be Spock right now, but she hugged Uhura as she was currently safe from the other woman's wrath. "Are you okay, Nyota?"

"Fine," her friend whispered. "He's an idiot, though."

As Charlie and Nyota were leaving the shuttle together, both on their way home, Charlie turned to her friend and dropped the bomb that she had missed earlier. "I'm transferring to the Archer, Nyota."

At first her friend looked very angry but after a second her face softened. "I understand. I just wish that we could still be on the same ship," she sighed, before hugging Charlie.

"I know. Thank you, though, for not yelling at me. So far, you and Spock are the only ones who appear supportive. God, you should have seen the tantrum Jim was having on the bridge earlier."

"I can imagine. What did Leonard say?"

"He wasn't happy, either, but I think he's willing to try and make this work. Anyway, I better find him so we can get home. I have a lot going on tomorrow."

She met up with Leonard and they shared a very silent dinner in their apartment before Charlie announced. "So I'm going to call my parents tonight and see if I can set up a meeting soon – before our next missions." It felt weird to say that they would be on separate missions.

This caught his attention and he raised his eyebrows. "How do you think it's going to go?"

"Not sure, but I was thinking we could meet them for dinner tomorrow night, if that's alright with you."

Leonard's southern accent came through a little thicker than usual as he became nervous. "Do you really think that's the best idea? So soon after telling them you're not with that prick anymore?"

"I'm sure they'll be fine," she replied with a smile before pulling out her phone and dialing up her parents. (Not before slipping into the bedroom so Leonard couldn't hear anything that could be construed as 'unkind' from her parents.

Her father's face popped up on the screen and he yelled "Finally! Can you please tell me what that fiasco the other day was about?"

"Well, you may not be aware of this, but Cerberus nearly experienced a famine and I sent Uncle Carter there to prevent it," she began, realizing that this was going to be a long story. "You see, Leonard's daughter lives there for most of the year and obviously I couldn't just stand there like an idiot, doing nothing to help. Thankfully, she was perfectly alright – I even got to meet her since they sent the children back to Earth for a few days."

"Wait, who the hell is Leonard?" her father asked, completely in the dark.

"Oh, yes, sorry. I guess I forgot to mention that we're dating now," she said as nonchalantly as she could.

She could hear her mother's shrill voice at the other end as she grabbed the phone from her husband and gave Charlie a tearful look. "What happened to Ryan? And who is this 'Leonard' guy anyway?"

"Ryan and I went our separate ways about a year ago and a short while later, I began dating Leonard, who is another medical officer in Starfleet. He's currently the Chief Medical Officer aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise – the ship that I'm on, too – and that is a very big deal. He's one of the best that Starfleet has to offer," she added vehemently.

"But why did you break up with Ryan?" her mother whined. "You were together so long!"

Why couldn't her mother just let it go? "Ryan was an asshole," she muttered. "Believe me, Leonard is definitely a trade-up – a big trade-up."

"He has a daughter? Has he been married before? How much older is he?" Her mother shot all these questions in quick succession but Charlie was used to this by now.

"Yes he has a daughter and an ex-wife – both of whom I've met. And Leonard is ten years older than me."

"Ten years? Sweetheart that is a long time."

"Please don't patronize me, mother. If you met him, then you would see why he's so wonderful."

"I just don't see why you can't manage to meet anyone who isn't in Starfleet," her mother sighed.

"Well, considering I work in Starfleet, it shouldn't be a huge shock that most the people I know are in Starfleet. I have plenty of friends," she added, so her mother couldn't go on about how lonely 'The Starfleet Life' was or how it ruined your social life or how it ruined your ability to meet a man.

"Is he from a good family?"

"If you're asking whether or not he is in any way related to you or your friends, the answer is no. Could you please stop the interrogation and just meet him tomorrow night? I know that you two could get here in plenty of time." (After all, they had plenty of resources.)

"Fine," her mother huffed. "You'll meet us tomorrow afternoon?"

"Yes, and then we'll have dinner at our apartment."

"You're living with him?!"

"Yes. See you tomorrow. Bye." Charlie hung up before her mother could get any worse and exhaled loudly. Tomorrow night was going to be absolutely exhausting.

Leonard knocked and peeked in. "So are they coming?"

"Yes. I'm going to stock up on wine while I'm out tomorrow because it's going to be time for the 'Dinner With My Parents' drinking game. Whenever they say something offensive or irritating, you just take a sip of wine and ignore it."

"Heavy drinking doesn't tend to go well for you," he reminded the short woman.

"It let to me kissing you, didn't it? Anyway, it's just my parents so I don't really care if I act like an idiot in front of them. You'll be fine, though. I've seen you deal with irritating patients before so I have the utmost confidence that you will be able to handle my parents. Just be prepared for the Spanish Inquisition."

"Noted," he muttered.

Charlie had an early morning meeting that day with her new captain, so they could see each other face-to-face. "Hello, Dr. Jacobs, I'm Captain Ortiz."

"It's a pleasure to meet you' ma'am," Charlie replied professionally. It would be weird having a captain who she couldn't openly mock on the bridge.

Her new captain was also quite a bit more professional than Kirk, though that was no surprise. "You had very professional credentials and I'm sure that you'll do very well aboard the Archer, but I did want to clarify a few things first. Kirk has become fairly notorious among the other Starfleet captains for being very loose when it comes to the rules. I hope you understand that my ship is not run in such a manner."

"Of course, ma'am. I'm well aware that Captain Kirk's methods are unorthodox and abnormal."

"Captain?" Ortiz asked. "I suppose you haven't heard that he's been demoted and sent back to the academy."

"Demoted?" Charlie had to do her best not to shriek in utter shock.

"Yes, I heard there was an incident on his latest mission which served as the last straw for Starfleet Command. He's been demoted and Commander Spock has been reassigned due to the seriousness of the issue."

"I was not aware," Charlie replied stiffly. Jim would be devastated right now and she had to wonder if she should cancel dinner with her parents so the poor bastard wouldn't drink himself to death.

"I'm sorry if you were close to him," Ortiz said, though she didn't sound very concerned. "We leave for our next mission in three days, so I hope that you can be prepared by that time."

"Yes, ma'am."

As soon as Charlie was beyond Ortiz's sight, she pulled out her phone and dialed Leonard. "Jim was demoted!" she shouted.

"What the hell?" Leonard was bound to be even more indignant than Charlie about the matter. "I know he's a little crazy, but I didn't think they'd demote him over it."

"Apparently. Do you think we should try to find him? I don't want to cancel with my parents but I don't know what Kirk is going to do about this," she said nervously.

"Well, I think you're going to have to cancel with them no matter what," Leonard began cautiously. "There was an incident earlier today and it's going to stir things up quite a bit, here."

"Incident?" Charlie hadn't bothered checking the news due to her early morning meeting nor did she make a habit of it.

"Apparently, someone blew up an archive in London and my guess is they're going to call some sort of fancy meeting about it. We may end up getting pulled into it."

"Jesus," she groaned. "As if things weren't bad enough. I'll call my mother and see if she's willing to wait an extra night until we know what's going on."

"Okay. I'll try to call Jim in the meantime to make sure he doesn't do something stupid."

That night, Charlie and Leonard stared wide-eyed in horror at the incident that had occurred: one single man firing at more than two dozen important figures in Starfleet. Charlie had only left a message with her mother so she shouldn't have been surprised when she got a call back.

"Now isn't a good time, mother," she said, mentally worn out from the events of the day.

"Why did you cancel on us?" her mother demanded.

"Since you clearly haven't been watching the news, Starfleet has been attacked on two separate occasions in less than twenty-four hours. Leonard and I need to be ready in case we're assigned a mission regarding the attacks."

For once her mother was rendered speechless for a moment. "This is serious, isn't it?"

"Yes," Charlie muttered. "It is. I'm hoping the matter can be settled in a short period of time, which is why I hope you'll stay in San Francisco a day or two but I honestly don't know what's going to happen."

Surprisingly, her mother accepted Charlie's explanation, maybe because she saw how exhausted her daughter was, but that did little to ease the anxiety she and Leonard felt that night. Little did they know that the next day would prove to be even more confusing than the last.

Both of their communicators went off at the same time which sent red flags up immediately as they were now assigned to two different starships. "Wait, I'm supposed to go to the Enterprise?" Charlie couldn't believe it. Something was clearly up.

"I guess we haven't had our last mission together, yet," Leonard surmised.

She pulled out her pad and began looking over the parameters for their assigned mission. "This gives no details on what our mission entails," she said quietly. "All it says here is that special permission was granted to Kirk so that I may be reinstated on the Enterprise for this particular mission. Kirk is captain again and Spock has been reinstated as his first officer."

"They must be really desperate if they reversed a decision like that."

"Really desperate or really indifferent."